Tokyo Crazy Paradise

In my opinion, this manga is very underrated. I only happened upon it by chance, having never heard of it before and I absolutely loved it. The female lead is very strong and admirable as well as hilarious. I also couldn't help but love Ryuuji and his interactions with Tsukasa are absolutely hysterical. I can't believe that this never gained more popularity. I understand that it is a bit of an odd genre having this mix of shoujo with hardcore action, but I just see this as something that makes it unique and special. More people should definitely give it a try. If you love Skip Beat! you should know that this is the same mangaka and she certainly doesn't disappoint.

I discovered this manga when looking for other works by Nakamura Yoshiki- I was first drawn in by her recent manga, Skip Beat!. It turned out she had written a manga directly before Skip Beat!, called Tokyo Crazy Paradise.

The story seems to cross over both shoujo and shounen lines, the shounen covered by the large amount of violence that occurs in this story and the"'I will protect/serve 'insert name of person or area here'" attitude that many, if not all of the characters hold. This aspect also hold up in the main storyline. The more typical shoujo aspects occur in the lead's focus on taking care (up to and including physically) of her family and love interest. The latter is central to her motivations for acting as she does, which gives this more of a shoujo lean. However, as mentioned before, the main storyline holds to more shounen aspects, such as becoming a bodyguard, being immensely proficient at a weapon, protecting the weak, and defeating any enemies that threaten the peace that her life has. Thankfully, unlike with many shounen mangas, the story isn't long enough to fall into the 'enemy of the week' territory. It is also rather innovative, with the lead heroine the one who does the protecting instead of vice-versa. Also, theworld that the mangaka paints is very different than the one most do, with bleak imaginings of the world falling into violence and depravity. The politics of this world are well thought-out, with much study on the Mafia and Yakuza apparent. And while the ending isn't the one that I may have hoped for, it is nonetheless realistic and fitting.

The art is quite shoujo, with large, sparkly eyes and 'pretty' boys. However, is is a little rough in some areas. If you have also read Skip Beat! then the similarity in character design is aparent, with Skip Beat! smoothing out some of the rougher edges in the art style. This also holds true for the charater's personalities themselves- you can see that Kyoko was based of Tokyo's main lead. But in and of themselves, the characters in Tokyo aren't bad- Tsukasa is overall a sweet girl with a few rough edges and the will to protect those that are precious to her at all costs. Her love interest at first appears to be an aloof pervert, but Tsukasa comes to understand that he... is an aloof pervert. While he does fall in love with Tsukasa, to protect his clan and life, he is willing to marry someone else. He is also a definate prototype for Ren of Skip Beat!. And in case I forget to mention, this is a bit of a reverse-harem. Not only is she surrounded by men (all her siblings are male, too!), several men do fall in love, both with her female form and when she's disguised as a man.

I did enjoy how different this was from most shoujo manga. It had action, action, romance, action, and a surprising amount of violence for the demographic it's aimed at- and I didn't mind a bit. Well, almost. It came too close to being too formulaic and violent for my tastes, but that's just a personal opinion. Overall, an eight. If you liked this, I do feel that you will like (or at least like comparing it with) her later work Skip Beat!. For female gender-hiding and reverse-harem, go for Ouran High School Host Club. And for incredible amounts of power, action, a little violence, and more reverse-harem, go for Dorothy of Oz. Enjoy!

This manga is amazing! There's absoulutely nothing I dislike about it! It's incredibly hilarious mixed with amazing action scenes, sweet romance, and touching scenes of angst. I'm not really into drama, but this added just the write blend to keep me interest throughout the whole series. I've read this manga at least ten times (truly) and I still haven't gotten tired of it.
Tsukasa and Ryuji make such an awesome team as both lovers and fighters. You couldn't ask for a better pairing.

I thought that this was an amazing manga worthy of becoming an anime. The whole bad guy and girl disguised as a boy plots are a bit overdone these days, but this was a worthy reading choice. The title itself throws you off a bit as weird, but it was worth finding it. The art is amazing, the characters are wonderful, and the romance, drama, and life going on in the manga are amazing. It shows a bit of breast, but it is so worth reading over and over again.

Story - set in the future, when it is dangerous for women to be on the street, comes the story of two 14 year olds. One, head honcho of a powerful yakuza group, the other the daughter of policeman, living as a man.

Yes, this is the basic story, but it is So Much More!! It is action packed, it is (slightly) romanitic, it is about growing up, and growing together, it is jealousy, it is humour, it is just so addictive!!! There were many occasions when I laughed outloud, in situations where I was not expecting any comedy.

Art - you can tell who all the main characters are, and Tsukasa's (our heroine) facial expressions are just grand! Ryuji despite his stoney expression conveys a lot, and I actually love it when they slip into chibi style. The art isn't as clean as I like it, but that is a personal preference, and not a failing of the mangaka. Occasionally I had trouble telling characters apart (that would be the younger brothers and some of the school friends), but on the whole I am really impressed with what happened with a LOT of characters.

Characters - I can't say anything other than outstanding. As mentioned above, there are a LOT of characters, and each has their own feel. Throughout the story, they grown, and change, and I fell in love with both Tsukasa and Ryuji! As well as numerous side characters.

Enjoyment/Overall - I got hooked. I got addicted. I sat down and read all 19 volumes across 2 days. And I don't regret it! It also has very high re-read potential. This manga has made it to my list of all time favourites. All I can say is give it a go - I don't think you will be sorry.

This is one of the first manga that got me hooked!
I loved the whole girl in boy disguise!
Hows innocent the main character is but strong willed and her personality is amazing.
I had some great laughs throughout the manga, the fighting scenes were great, the family and friends are used amazingly well.
And I wouldn't want to give anything else! So read it.
YOU'LL

I'm not really a fan of romantic type of manga, whenever i see a category of romantic in genre I immediately ignore it. But "Tokyo Crazy Paradise" is an exemption of those, I'm out of manga to read when I tried to give these a shot and I am super really, really great-full of it.

The reason I dislike romantic manga because of the common type of protagonist whether a girl or a boy, always a wimp, lame, harem, ecchi, etc so tired of those character. In TCP all the character are created well thoroughly whether its the protagonist or the antagonist of the story.

Tokyo crazy paradise is full of comedy-action-romantic manga on different level. In hundreds of manga that I've read for me the theme (gokudo) of this manga is one of the rarest (I hate spoiling story so I usually doesn't give a summary or synopsis in a review). The art in the beginning is kinda poor but just bear with a little because as the story goes it also became great and really addicting.

I couldn't count how many times I re-read this. I am just kinda disappointed that there is no anime adaption of a great manga as this, Skip Beat manga (same author) isn't even on the level of TCP. This is included in my top five most favorite manga. n_n

I tried really hard to like this manga, and on the surface, it has a lot of elements that I usually like. Strong, kick-ass female MC? Check. Gender-Bender slow burn romance? Yeah, I'm a sucker for that. Written by Nakamura sensei? Well I love Skip Beat, so I would love this one too, right?

I read through several of story arcs, hoping that it would get better, before I eventually gave up and moved on. There are a few different reasons why it didn't appeal to me:
-Age of the characters (14). As a female in her 30s, that is already an age that I can't really relate to. More importantly, I found it creepy and innapropriate that Tsukasa was often referred to in a sexualized manner. There have been other manga that I have read with character's of a similar age, and sometimes I am able to see past that (for example, another manga that I have read recently and recommend - Meteor Methusulah), but in this case I felt like I was constantly reminded of the characters' age. Additionally, Ryuuji''s place as the head of a yakuza clan felt completely unrealistic to me
-Ratio of text to illustration. I prefer it when the mangaka allows the pictures to speak for themselves, rather than have to spell out every little detail in the text. TCP is crammed full of text, much of which doesn't really contribute anything to the story.
- Art...it was definitely dated, and not my style. Not a deal breaker for me - there have been other manga that I ended up loving in spite of their art style (for example, Skip Beat and Basara). If the story and characters are good enough, I can potentially overlook the art style. That was not the case here, and the panels all felt really cluttered and disorganized.

One of my all time favorites and also underrated manga. The story starts off very cliche and uses many repetitive tones and plots like any other manga out there. BUT I also feel that it deserves a lot of leeway considering that it is a mid-90's manga.

[7/10] ART
The art is not as pleasant and polished in comparison to what we are all used to, and can take a bit of time to adjust (like I did). However, I want to make note that as the story progresses, the illustrations IMPROVED!!

[9/10] STORY
The story and plot are not exceptionally divine and different, but it does not take away the charm from the characters. I really enjoy a manga that can make me feel attached to the characters, giving them all my support and get soppy when their wishes don't come true. I also like that it has GOOD RESOLUTION and that gives me the satisfaction of a true fairy tale shoujo.

[10000000/10] OVERALL LOVELOVELOVE
Overall, if you are interested in reading it, stick with it for the first few chapters--I know, the art will make you cringe a little but it'll be worth it.

Make me want to read it again writing this review.

Ideally I would so so so LOVE it if they could make this into an anime...so kickass.

Cheers.

I'll be honest right from the start: this review is biased. It focuses too much on only one aspect of the manga. That said, it is an aspect I consider very important and that could be even a deal breaker, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Yes, it is about the art. To say sucks would be an understatement. It's absolutely horrendous. It makes the manga practically unbearable. The illustrations are worse than bad fanarts posted by a 13 years old teen on a deviantart. The anatomy is worse than that of bad yaoi manga, and that's something. The characters are constantly offmodel with plenty of tiny heads, unnaturally huge shoulders and grasshopper legs. If you're into some tall characters than this might be for you, as the characters in the manga experience some serious growth. Not as a development, but as a literal growth. Through the series the main characters are more and more often portrayed as someone with legs three times the length of their torso. It goes to such extremes that random unnamed characters in background are considerable better drawn than the protagonists.

I'm a fan of stylized manga art like for example works of Yuuichi Yokoyama or Hayashi Seiichi. I can enjoy goofy illustration like ONE's Mob Psycho 100. But this, this isn't excusable by "an artstyle". This isn't goofing around. This is just plain bad art. It's that sort of illustrations that would make art professors shriek with terror when approached with it, like trying to hand the Bible to a demon. This manga took a look at the already low standard for shoujo manga and told to itself "boi I can sure do it even worse while still avoiding being axed". It's so awful I have to question whether there even were editors in the times this was made, as it looks like literally nobody except the author has seen the pages before they went to the print. The characters are often abominations and the final product looks like there was zero quality control involved.

Of course, this work also falls into the pitfall that usually ensnares shoujo manga - bad backgrounds. Or to be more specific, no backgrounds. This manga can go PAGES without having a properly drawn background for a single panel. This combined with the already horrid art makes for a comic that is quite hard to orient in and to gather what and where is happening, adding to the enjoyableness. But this manga takes it even further - not just backgrounds, it can go without using even the already easy to add filters, making the panels just ugly drawn characters on a blank white background. Such a low-effort product. Sometimes I got baited by one or two pages being passable, thinking that the author finally improved, but this was always just a false hope as the art quickly got back to its usual state of being poor, sometimes even worse than previously.

The panel composition itself is also unsurprisingly a failure, with no reason and rhyme put into it most of the time. Often there is just wall of a text on a page with smaller illustrations, making it seem like that larger amount of text is there just so the author doesn't have to draw more. Sometimes only half of the page is filled with some small cringy chibi drawing on rest of the page. Honestly this manga might have worked better as a novel. I'm sure some established and respected publishers such as Harlequin would be happy to take upon themselves to publish it.

Which gets us to the story itself. Not gonna lie, I wasn't able to focus on it much, spending most of the time either snickering or facepalming to the the hideous art. When I was trying to find out why do people even like this manga, what I got was basically "it features adult themes like mafia and drugs even though it's a shoujo, so it's good", which is just plain faulty reasoning. It's not the themes alone that make a work good, it's how they are portrayed in the work. "Iz gud coz for adults" is just an Elfen Lied/Another/etc. mentality all over again. What I can say after reading this manga that no matter how serious your plot might sound on a paper, craftily added shoujo elements such as "le random xddd" super deformed facial expressions and badly timed comic reliefs are perfectly capable of destroying the overall atmosphere.

I wanted to say that this work didn't age well, but it's actually bad even when compared with its contemporary works. This is among one of the worst drawn manga I've ever read, and I've read my deal of bad manga. Definitely a waste of time.

Man, this is hard to write, because I love this kind of formula, and the action and the people and everything is pretty darn good. The whole girl getting dressed up in disguise and is gorgeous and super cool is one of my favorite tropes. Genderbender too? SO AMAZING. I love Tsukasa a lot, she's kind of dumb at times, but she has a nice heart and a strong will and she's great, so great.

As I read the manga, however, I just couldn't make myself like Ryuuji. Given that he's literally one of the most important parts of the manga, a love interest and everything, this made my reading of Tokyo Crazy Paradise hard going.

He's not a horrible person, but the way he treated Tsukasa at times was verging on sexual harassment, if not just that. He kind of bullied her a ton, which I don't really find amusing in love interests, and sure he got better, but I still couldn't find it within me to think, "Oh but look he's changed for her kya kya they're so cute/hot/adjective."

In the manga, it was always depicted in a "Oh Ryuuji and your silly shenanigans!!" way, but I found it kind of gross to get through. I didn't really want Tsukasa with anybody really, but if I had to choose, it would not be him, my sincere apologies to the 99.99% of the readership who ship it hard. It wasn't my cup of tea.

Also, while I'm ok with nudity, (if it's there, whatever man!), the constant input of "Tsukasa has breasts!, look at them, also they are huge, and she is fourteen and super hot and the way dudes look at her is totally expected, (and for love interests, complimentary). Like, I didn't need that at all. I wanted Tsukasa being awesome, kicking ass and being super pretty. I didn't want her shown as a sex thing since she was supposed to be my cool protagonist with flaws.

In general, this wasn't for me I think. Heavy mixed feelings, sorry. At times, I adore this, at times I hate it, so I have to give this a 5 overall.

I throughly enjoyed this manga, because it was completely different from most shoujo manga I have read. Tsukasa is the female lead, and I have to say kicks as much ass as any guy can. The male lead is Ryuji and doesn't lack anything either. It was nice to have a good balance between action and romance. The fight scenes in the manga are very thrilling and the romance definitely keeps you wanting to see more without getting too mushy. If you've read any of Nakamura Yoshiki's work, or are simply looking for something other than your typical romance manga then this is definitely one you should try.

HOW I WAS INTRODUCED TO TOKYO CRAZY PARADISE:
"Tokyo Crazy Paradise" was one of my random finds. I don't very often read random manga, but in TCP's case, I'm glad I did.

STORY (8/10):
When you boil TCP's story down into a mere plot summary it sounds dull and overdone--girl falls for bad boy, leader of a mafia organization at that. However, doing this certainly doesn't do TCP justice. The story melds romance, drama, and action so well that TCP becomes an incredibly unique story of its own.

ART (7/10):
The art of TCP is by no means bad, but it is a little different. The art even seems to reflect the melding of genres--a little shounen action art flavor with the shoujo flavor. There are some areas of the manga that feel as if they have been drawn somewhat akwardly, but the majority is good.

CHARACTERS (7/10):
The characters in TCP are just short of amazing. The protagonist, Tsukasa, is quite simply one of the strongest female characters in shoujo manga. Even considering the gender-bender situation, one doesn't lose sight of her feminine side. As for Ryuugi, he is less lovingly characterized than Tsukasa, but a great character despite it. As the volumes continue, one finds that it's easier to like him more and more.

ENJOYMENT (8/10):
TCP is unique, funny, and interesting. It has romance, drama, a love triangle, and gender-bending. I highly recommend anyone to read it.

OVERALL (7.5/10)

- Spiffyish

NOTE ABOUT THIS REVIEW: Also, if you find this review unhelpful in anyway, send me a private message saying why (please) so that I can improve it for future readers! :D

to tell you the truth that was the best manga I've read.

It was awesome, great and wow.

I like the girl how could take care of her self, so that why this manga

was the best I've read .

can i ask you do you know manga like this??

This is one of the best story i have ever read. The plot is really different from any other shoujo manga. You don't see good story like that often. But, if you want a sweet, no-fighting story don't read this. Personally, I really like those kind of stories so for me it's ya know, la crème de la crème. There's fighting. There's romance. Sooo good!

The characters are really good. You can put yourself in their place. They aren't unnatural. I really liked how Tsukasa is baka some times but sometimes she's serious and become a goddess of fighting! And Ryuji is so funny.

The art is alright. It's not outstanding but it's good.

I really enjoyed this one. 1000|10

Well anyway, READ THIS. It's amazing. You should really read this. If you see some negative comments on this manga, don't care 'cause it's really good. Don't hesitate.

As many here, I started KurePara by trying to find something else from Nakamura-sensei after finishing Skip Beat! for the second time (I gotta stop rereading stuff).

Story - 10
The story gave us some shounen in the shoujo scenario. What is basically something awesome, because it has the perfect balance between romance and action. I'm kinda getting tired of all those honey-filled shoujo (aka Kyo, Koi wo Hajimemashite).

It all had the right pace to keep me on the edge of my seat from the very begining.
Nakamura-sensei must had done a lot of research to portrait the yakuza.

Art - 6
This is where I think is the thing that bothered me the most about the manga.
THE HAIR. The main chara Tsukasa's hair just bothered me so much at the beginning that I would stare at the page a long time trying to figure it out. Male lead Ryuji's hair isn't much better also.
Gladly, the art progress is clear, in the end everybody's hair just looked normal. And it seems she really improved her hair drawing as seen in Skip Beat!.

Character - 10
Everyone has a pretty interesting personality, and a complete background that makes perfect sense later.
You can tell everything was planned from the very start, otherwise this would not be possible. (And just awesome mangakas do this.)
A great thing is that we don't have our regular shoujo set up, with the cute tsundere female and the cute misterious male.
I guess is kind the oposite, the main charachter being a genderbender that is an awesome fighter!!!!!
You gotta love Tsukasa.

Enjoyement - 10
I guess I explained everything above.



In the end, REALLY worth it.
If you are looking for action, but without forgetting the romance, this is for you.

Tokyo crazy paradise. how did I come upon it? I was looking through anime, and stumbled on it, saying to myself "Hey, that art style looks just like skip beats!" Not knowing that it was done by the same author until later. I'm not going to say "This is my first review" don't pity me, use your actually opinion on it!

Story-10
Personally I enjoyed this manga a lot! This manga has the cold stone-faced boy,Ryuji, and the girl that he shows his 'real' expressions to,Tsubasa, while still carrying out action and humor, it's very entertaining. If you're looking for a sappy romance between body guard and "master" then look elsewhere, This manga has alot of romance I admit but there are no really sappy scenes. Meanwhile, the fighting was interesting to read, although I don't normally like shounen manga, the fighting was intense and wasn't the whole story, so I enjoyed th ewhole story and really never got bored.

Art- 7
I normally aren't picky about "manga" art (for some reason I can't stand manhua), But Yoshiki Nakamura has a very unique way of drawing that I wasn't necessarily crazy about. However the backgrounds were very well drawn and so were cars and nonliving objects, but I couldn't get over how she drew people. Now, I'm not saying it is ugly, because by no means is that true, Ryuji is handsome and Tsubasa is pretty, but it still took a while for me to get used to the art.

Character- 9
This was a long manga therefore there was plenty of time for the characters to develope, and they did! The character development was amazing, I really felt like I knew the characters, and could understand their train of thoughts. The characters personalities stayed true through out the manga and there was no sudden bipolar times in any charcter(I am referring to Train's sudden personality change in the beginnign of Black cat when he joid that man and little girl(sorry haven't seen that anime in like a year... so), that baffled me) The characters were lovable, and very well done.

Enjoyment- 9
I thouroughly enjoyed this manga, and read it in a period of technically three days. I read 84 chapters in two days, then I took a break of about a week then read the rest. It was very cute, but you must follow the plotline and pay attention to whas going on, names, and faces or you will have no idea whats happening.

Overall- 9
I really enjoyed this manga and it was extrememly adorable, so overall, 9.

I discovered TCP while waiting for Skip Beat! chapters to be scantalated. I was skeptical at first, but decided to take a leap of faith and read another one of Nakamura-sensei's works. And I'm glad I did... Oh yes. Having already fangirl-ed sufficiently over Skip Beat!, I felt compelled to write about Tokyo Crazy Paradise. Don't worry, it'll will be a more solid review this time around ;D

>Story: TCP (or KurePara) is a little mix of everything when it comes to the plot. It has enough action to appeal to a shounen audience, while the romantic elements are true to it's shoujo nature. There were certainly many scenes that took my breath away, especially the first time I read it. My only critique is that it was slightly all over the place leaving a few things things under-explained and the ending could have seemed anticlimatic (although it did a good job of tying the loose ends together).

In the crime-ridden Tokyo of fictional 2020, death is a common theme throughout - it being the cause of the protagonists coming together in the first place. KurePara is a more mature piece because it deals with serious and dark topics such as rape and drug wars, but sprinkles a good amount of humor in between. The comedy never felt out of place. A romance about a boy who was raised as a Yakuza and a girl raised to be a member of the police may seem cliche, but cliches aren't necessarily a bad thing. Of course, cross-dressing gender-hiding females were never scarce in anime or manga, but KurePara is a prime example of doing it right.

>Art: TCP skillfully combines a rougher style and merges it with the more feminine touch that is prevalent in Skip Beat! I'm not sure if that is because the mangaka polished her technique as time passed or if this is intentional. But this never detracted from the experience, as the style happened to suit TCP's story perfectly.

It's a treat to once again see the lead female's multiple transformations and disguises. Emotions were never lacking from the panels but some of the character designs were a tad more bland than what I was expecting (meaning that it was initially hard for me to tell some of them apart). In an author's note, Nakamura-sensei herself addressed this and explained that it was because a large number of characters were middle-aged. Therefore, the art was still a treat to behold in my humble opinion.

>Character: Now this is the exciting part ^u^ The crowning jewel of Nakamura-sensei's work.

Tsukasa, the female lead, was definitely the inspiration for Kyouko. As such, her personality reflects a cuter, more energetic side as well as the strong, loyal, terrifying fighter that she is. The other characters are constantly surprised by Tsukasa's actions and her uncanny resemblance to an important legend. She always adds flavor to the story and the overall experience would be sorely lacking without her.

Ryuuji is the stony-faced teenager who seems far more mature than his age. This is due to the responsibility he shoulders in order to lead his people. Tsukasa is able to bring out the emotions that he conceals - inadvertently revealing his amusingly immature attitude towards her in the process.

The best part was that the story does not only revolve around these two, but everyone else on the sidelines. I was drawn in to the struggles of Asago, a girl who strives to become the perfect partner for Ryuuji; the emotional support of Kamojima, who acts as a father figure to the group; Akira, who represents a ray of morality and hope by being a part of the police force "Grave"; and even the villains, including Shiki and Shiva - but I won't talk about them because =spoilers!= as well as many others (including the ones who aren't even ALIVE during the story). I love how they all grew splendidly over the course of the manga. The area of character development will not disappoint - everyone has their fair share of shifts in perspectives and mindsets.

If the character's were so amazing, what was the problem here? Well, it doesn't help that the main characters are ONLY 14! If they were at least a year or two older, I could find myself more accepting of various events. Many times I was drawn out of "willing suspension of disbelief" in order to gape at some of their actions. Though society is fairly different from ours, they were undoubtedly minors who wouldn't have gotten away with half of the things they did. That, or they simply hit puberty far too early. (But, if you're okay with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, then I guess this is fine - each to their own era)

>Enjoyment/Overall: Regardless of some minor flaws, I did thoroughly enjoy KurePara and found myself rereading it not soon after. I would recommend it to an older audience as there are visuals like bare breasts and instances of mature humor. If you've read Skip Beat! already, definitely give this one a go. It's nice comparing the two and seeing the original ideas and elements present in Nakamura-sensei's present serialization. I can't say that it'll be an entirely sweet ride, but I can guarantee that it'll be a page-turner.

What do I think of it in the end? I believe Tokyo Crazy Paradise is quite underrated for being such a captivating, somewhat-unorthodox, shoujo manga. It deserved it's own anime, but I can see why it never did.

Story: 10

Tokyo Crazy Paradise is built upon clichés that we’ve read/watched about a thousand times with manga and anime: yakuza, gender bending, poor girl, rich guy, poor girl becoming the “servant” of rich guy…But these clichés are done well in which you forget they’re clichés in the first place. Warning: this manga is grittier than typical shoujos. There’re drugs, human trafficking, violence, prostitution—yeah, it’s all there. This is a Yakuza story after all. And sure, these things might not faze some readers (the seinen demographic), but need I remind you again that TCP is shoujo? You know, the same thing Kimi ni Todoke (shoujo in its purest form) is labeled?

But Tokyo Crazy Paradise has all the right things I look for in a manga. There’s action (don’t underestimate the action scenes just because this is a “girl’s” manga), there’s romance, there’s comedy, there’s drama, and yes, there’s angst. And of course, the badass characters are a plus.

Art: 7

The art is old-school. The hair (bangs) are cut off in awkward waves—you know what I’m talking about. And the eyes are sparkly, as shoujos typically have them. This was made in 1996-2002 after all. But it grew on me, like old-school usually does. And of course, you see the journey of how Nakamura’s skills improve by the chapter.

Character: 10

Gender benders usually annoy me in which they’re not done well. I mean, c’mon! No matter how much I love Hana Kimi, you can obviously tell Ishiya is a G-U-R-L! But when I first started reading Tokyo Crazy Paradise, I seriously believed Tsukasa was a boy. Her (His?) tough actions and rough boy-ish looks just screamed MALE! She lives life by her own pace and fights for justice. Tsukasa also has a specialty weapon she fights with: a whip made of chains. How she grew accustomed to it, I don’t know, but she’s essentially a badass.

I’m also really sick and tired of useless and weak female protagonists in manga, but Tsukasa is probably my favorite heroine ever in manga/anime history. She’s funny, she’s strong, and she has morals (she DOESN’T go around, “obliviously” flirting with guys or “accidentally” tempting men to want her or blush at every hot guy who glances at her).

The other protagonist of this story is Ryuji, the young yakuza boss who has an interesting relationship with Tsukasa. Is he her childhood friend? Her childhood rival? Or are they childhood classmates who rarely ever talked to each other? All three. The answer is all three.

At the beginning, Ryuji is depicted as cold, harsh, and someone who deserves the title of head of a yakuza clan. But he’s still essentially, 14 years old (one throwback of TCP. They’re friggin 14 and in junior high as the story progresses!). And who’s the one who makes him feel that way? None other than our badass and goofy heroine, Tsukasa. Believe me, I could go on forever about these two, so to shorten it up, these two bring out the best and the worst in each other—and they wouldn’t prefer it any other way.

The rest of the TCP cast consists of some of the most likeable (and badass, you can never have enough badass) characters in manga. Tsukasa’s goofy brothers and Ryuji’s yakuza clan members just create this huge (entertaining) and loving family. You don’t know whether you want to watch them from afar in fear of their short tempers or join in with their chaos.

(In replacement of Enjoyment…) Romance: 10

Tokyo Crazy Paradise is a slow romance. I love slow romances, so it’s perfect for me. Some people don’t like slow romances, but c’mon, at least it’s faster than Skip Beat! (I still love you though Skip Beat!). There’s this Romeo and Juliet thing going on between Ryuji and Tsukasa since Ryuji is the head of his yakuza clan and Tsukasa grew up with cops as her parents who engraved into her head that yakuza are horrible people who Tsukasa should never involve herself with.

But these two form a friendship with each other over the years they’ve been together (refer to paragraph 2 under Character) and of course, once Ryuji discovers Tsukasa’s real gender, he can’t keep his eyes (and hands) off of her. There’s chemistry and a hint of something more, but there’s the Romeo and Juliet thing going on that stops any feelings from arising. Then, their relationship takes another turn when obstacles arise, both in their love lives and their life together as individuals involved in the underground world.

The romance between these two aren’t light and fluffy either. You can say their love is mature, but you can also say it’s restrained, and in the end, it’s uncontrollable. Sorry, that sounded really cheesy, but that’s exactly how their love progresses. Like I said, the romance is really slow at the beginning, but when it gets going, IT GETS GOING! So yes, your romance needs will definitely be fulfilled in Tokyo Crazy Paradise. And that’s the way I like it!

All in all, you have no idea how much I wanted these two to be together and get a happily ever after even though they weren’t meant to be.

Overall rating: 10

I’ve said all I need to say about Tokyo Crazy Paradise (I’m lying. There’s so much more I can say, but as you can tell, this review is long enough as it is). Not once was I bored when I read this manga, and yes, I did read TCP in one sitting. Admittedly, the ending was not as satisfying as I wanted it to be, but when I reread the series a second, then third, then fourth time, I realized the ending wasn’t as unsatisfactory as I initially thought.

I won’t lie and say you’d definitely enjoy Tokyo Crazy Paradise if you gave it a chance since everybody has different tastes. But I can assure you that the label of “shoujo” shouldn’t make you lower your standards. There's the perfect balance between romance and action and I've never seen any other manga/anime that has done a better or even level job as Tokyo Crazy Paradise. Both guys and girls can enjoy this manga and I sincerely hope you do give this series a chance. Who knows, it might just become one of your all-time favorites as it became one of mine.

Too bad there isn’t an anime for this or an English license. I’d throw away all my savings to buy all 19 volumes/box sets in a heartbeat.